The first time I climbed the slope to Kiyomizu-dera in the middle of the afternoon, I spent more time dodging selfie sticks than looking at the temple. Two days later I was in Kanazawa, sitting at an oden counter in Katamachi with a bowl of simmered daikon and a glass of local sake, and the only other people in the room were regulars arguing cheerfully about baseball. That contrast is the whole story of Kanazawa vs Kyoto. Both are beautiful old cities full of gardens, teahouse districts and serious food. They give you very different days, though, and the right choice depends on what kind of trip you want.
Quick Guide: Kanazawa vs Kyoto Key Takeaways
- Primary Recommendation: Do both if you can. Kyoto to Kanazawa takes about two hours by train with one change at Tsuruga, so three nights in Kyoto and two in Kanazawa fit comfortably into a single week.
- Top Choice for Temples and History: Kyoto, Japan's imperial capital from 794 to 1869. Insider tip: Fushimi Inari Taisha is free and never closes, so go at first light and you will have the lower gates almost to yourself.
- Top Choice for Culture Without the Crowds: Kanazawa. Kenroku-en lets visitors in free during early-morning hours before paid admission starts, which means one of Japan's three great gardens with almost nobody in it.
- Value Pick: Kanazawa for seafood lovers and travellers watching their budget. Kenroku-en costs ¥320, the public zone of the 21st Century Museum is free, and a seafood rice bowl at Omicho Market is one of the best lunches in Japan for the price.
- The Best Way to See Both Cities: Take a private, personalized walking experience with Lokafy in Kanazawa or Lokafy in Kyoto and discover the backstreets and family-run counters with a local.
Kanazawa vs Kyoto: The Short Answer
Kyoto is the big name. It served as the seat of the emperor for more than a thousand years, has well over a thousand temples, and 17 temples, shrines and castles in and around the city share a single UNESCO World Heritage listing. It is also one of the most visited cities on earth for its size: around 1.43 million people live there, and the city counted more than 56 million tourists in 2024.
Kanazawa is a castle town of roughly 450,000 people on the Sea of Japan coast, once the seat of the wealthy Maeda clan who ruled the Kaga domain. It escaped bombing in World War II, so its samurai quarter, three teahouse districts and castle grounds survived in one compact, walkable centre. Guidebooks love calling it "little Kyoto." Locals tend to roll their eyes at that, and fair enough, because Kanazawa has its own food culture, its own crafts (the city makes almost all of Japan's gold leaf) and a pace that feels nothing like Kyoto's.
Pick Kyoto if this is your first trip to Japan and you want the famous temples. Pick Kanazawa if you have seen the classics already, dislike crowds, or care more about what is on your plate than what is on your checklist. Pick both if you have six days or more.
Getting There and Getting Around
From Tokyo, Kanazawa is easy. The Kagayaki, the fastest train on the Hokuriku Shinkansen, runs from Tokyo Station to Kanazawa in about two and a half hours with no changes. Kyoto is a similar trip on the Tokaido Shinkansen, so neither city has the edge here.
Between Kyoto and Kanazawa, there is no longer a direct train. Since the Hokuriku Shinkansen was extended to Tsuruga in March 2024, the Thunderbird limited express runs from Kyoto to Tsuruga in a little under an hour, and you switch there to the Shinkansen for the last hour to Kanazawa. Door to door it is about two hours, and both legs are covered by the Japan Rail Pass. Buy both legs together and book seats on busy weekends.
Getting around Kyoto is the part nobody warns you about. The city bus costs a flat ¥230 inside the central zone, and the Subway & Bus 1-Day Pass is ¥1,100, but the buses to the big sights are often packed so tightly that residents cannot board. Ride the subway and the private railways (Keihan and Hankyu) wherever you can, and walk the rest. Kyoto has also announced plans to charge non-residents more than locals on city buses, so check the current fare before you go.
Getting around Kanazawa is far simpler. Most of the main sights sit within walking distance of each other, and the Kanazawa Loop Bus leaves from the station's East Exit, bus stop 7, every 15 minutes or so. A single ride is ¥220, and the ¥800 one-day pass covers the Loop Bus plus most central city buses and gets you small discounts at several museums. One local tip: Kanazawa is famously rainy, and residents have an old saying that you can forget your lunch box but never your umbrella. Pack one.
What It Costs: Hotels, Temples and Tickets
Kyoto has become noticeably more expensive to stay in. The city's accommodation tax is charged per person, per night, and it climbs with the room rate: ¥200 for rooms under ¥6,000, ¥400 from ¥6,000 to ¥19,999, ¥1,000 from ¥20,000 to ¥49,999, ¥4,000 from ¥50,000 to ¥99,999, and ¥10,000 for rooms at ¥100,000 or more. For a couple in a luxury hotel, that last tier adds ¥20,000 to every night of the stay.
Temple fees have crept up too. Ginkaku-ji (the Silver Pavilion) doubled its admission to ¥1,000 for adults, its first increase in more than 30 years. Kiyomizu-dera and Kinkaku-ji are ¥500 each.
Kanazawa is gentler on the wallet. Kenroku-en is ¥320 for adults (cash only), the grounds of Kanazawa Castle Park are free, and you can wander the free public zone of the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art and peer down into Leandro Erlich's famous Swimming Pool from above without buying a ticket. Going inside the pool requires an exhibition ticket and a timed slot, and those slots go fast on weekends.
Temples, Gardens and Geisha Districts, Head to Head
Gardens. Kyoto has more of them, from the moss gardens of the west to the raked gravel of Ryoan-ji. Kanazawa has one garden that many Japanese travellers rank above all of them. Kenroku-en is listed alongside Kairakuen in Mito and Korakuen in Okayama as one of the Three Great Gardens of Japan, and its early-morning free entry is the best travel hack in either city. From September to October the gates open at 5am, and from November through February at 6am. Only the Renchi-mon and Zuishinzaka entrances open early, and you need to leave 15 minutes before paid hours begin. Come in winter and you will see the yukitsuri, the rope cones tied over the pines to protect their branches from heavy snow.
Temples. No contest on numbers: Kyoto wins. Fushimi Inari's tunnel of torii gates, the wooden stage of Kiyomizu-dera and the Golden Pavilion of Kinkaku-ji are world-famous for good reason. The trick is timing. Fushimi Inari is open around the clock, Kiyomizu-dera opens at 6am, and Kinkaku-ji opens at 9am with queues that build fast in spring and autumn. Kanazawa's temple scene is smaller and more surprising. Myoryu-ji, nicknamed the Ninja Temple, was built in 1643 as a disguised lookout for the Maeda lords and looks like a two-storey building from outside while hiding four floors, trap doors and secret staircases inside. Tours are in Japanese with English notes, cost ¥1,200 for adults, and need a reservation by phone. Afterwards, wander the Teramachi temple district around it, where dozens of temples line quiet lanes that most visitors never see.
Geisha districts. Gion in Kyoto is the most famous geisha district in Japan, and it has had enough of tourists. Its private alleys are now off-limits to visitors, with signs warning of a ¥10,000 fine, and residents have asked people not to photograph geiko and maiko without permission. Hanamikoji, the main street, stays open. Kanazawa has three chaya districts instead of one. Higashi Chaya is the biggest and busiest, so go before 9am. Kazuemachi, across the Asano River, is a short strip of lattice-fronted teahouses along the water that looks its best at dusk. Nishi Chaya is a single short street near the Ninja Temple, smaller and much quieter, and still home to working geiko.
Where Locals Eat in Kanazawa and Kyoto
This is where Kanazawa pulls ahead for a lot of travellers. The city sits on the Sea of Japan, and the seafood is the reason many Japanese visitors come at all.
In Kanazawa, start at Omicho Market, a covered market of more than 170 stalls that locals have called the city's kitchen for around 300 years. Go before 11am for a kaisendon (seafood rice bowl) before the lunch queues build. For conveyor-belt sushi, Kanazawa travellers on Reddit keep recommending Mori Mori Sushi as a lunch spot, saving the big omakase budget for dinner. Then try Kanazawa oden, which unlike oden elsewhere in Japan is eaten all year, with local touches like kurumabu (a wheel of wheat gluten) and, in winter, kani-men, the meat of a small crab packed back into its own shell. Akadama Honten in Katamachi has been serving it since 1927, and Miyuki near the station is a long-time local favourite worth calling ahead for. For a big night, Itaru is the izakaya residents recommend for nodoguro (blackthroat seaperch), the rich, buttery fish Kanazawa is proudest of. And for cheap comfort food, follow the office workers to Champion Curry for Kanazawa-style curry (thick, dark sauce, shredded cabbage, served on a steel plate) or to Hachiban Ramen, the Ishikawa-born chain famous for its vegetable ramen.
If you visit in November or December, ask for kobako-gani, the small female snow crab that is only in season for about two months each winter. Locals plan their year around it.
In Kyoto, skip the idea that Nishiki Market is where Kyoto people shop. It has become a snack-on-a-stick corridor for visitors, and it is only pleasant before 10am. Locals point instead to the Demachi Masugata shopping arcade in the north of the city, a covered street of grocers and small shops near Demachiyanagi Station. At its southern end is Demachi Futaba, where people line up for mame-mochi, soft rice cakes studded with salty red peas and filled with sweet bean paste. Eat one on the stepping stones at the Kamo River delta, a five-minute walk away, where Kyoto students spend their afternoons. Near Kyoto Station, two old ramen shops stand side by side on the same street: Shinpuku Saikan, known for its dark soy broth, and Honke Daiichi-Asahi, famous for its queue. Kyoto also gave Japan Tenka Ippin, the ultra-thick chicken ramen chain that started from a street stall in Kitashirakawa in 1971.
Hidden Corners Locals Point You Toward
Kyoto: After dark, take the bus north to Funaoka Onsen in the Murasakino neighbourhood. Despite the name, it is a sento (public bathhouse) dating from 1923, with carved wooden panels in the changing room, an outdoor bath and what is said to be one of the first electric baths in Japan. Kyoto residents have been soaking here for a century, and it is a far more local evening than any bar in Pontocho. For a half-day escape, ride the little Eizan Railway from Demachiyanagi to Kurama, about 30 minutes, then hike over the mountain to the riverside shrine village of Kibune. And before you leave Demachi, walk ten minutes north to Shimogamo Shrine and its old forest, the Tadasu no Mori.
Kanazawa: Climb the steps behind Higashi Chaya to the Utatsuyama temple area, a quiet hillside of small temples that most tour groups skip entirely. Walk Kazuemachi along the Asano River as the lanterns come on. And spend an hour in the Nagamachi samurai district, where the earthen walls of the old residences are still wrapped in straw mats each winter to protect them from snow.
A note on the Noto Peninsula, north of Kanazawa: it was badly damaged in the January 2024 earthquake and is still rebuilding. Kanazawa itself saw only limited damage and is fully open. Noto is welcoming visitors again in stages, and spending money there helps the recovery, but check the latest conditions before you plan a day trip.
Itineraries: How to Do Kanazawa, Kyoto or Both
Two days in Kanazawa
- Day 1: Enter Kenroku-en during the free early hours, then cross to Kanazawa Castle Park. Mid-morning at the 21st Century Museum. Lunch at Omicho Market. Afternoon in the Nagamachi samurai district. Evening oden and sake in Katamachi.
- Day 2: Higashi Chaya before 9am, then up the steps to Utatsuyama. Lunch at Champion Curry or a sushi counter. Afternoon tour of Myoryu-ji (booked ahead by phone) followed by a stroll down Nishi Chaya. Finish at Kazuemachi as the sun goes down.
Three days in Kyoto
- Day 1: Fushimi Inari at dawn, then Tofuku-ji, a short train ride north. Afternoon in Higashiyama, saving Kiyomizu-dera for late afternoon when the tour groups thin out (it closes at 6pm most of the year). Evening walk along the public streets of Gion.
- Day 2: The Philosopher's Path from Nanzen-ji north to Ginkaku-ji. Lunch near Okazaki. Evening in Pontocho or along the Kamo River.
- Day 3: Demachi Futaba and the Kamo River delta, Shimogamo Shrine, then the Eizan Railway to Kurama for the hike to Kibune. Back in the city, finish with a soak at Funaoka Onsen.
Five days doing both
Fly into Tokyo and take the Kagayaki straight to Kanazawa for two nights. Then ride the Shinkansen and Thunderbird via Tsuruga to Kyoto for three nights, and fly home from Kansai International. This route never backtracks, and starting in Kanazawa means you arrive in Kyoto already knowing how good Japanese food can be when nobody is rushing you.
So, Kanazawa or Kyoto?
Choose Kyoto if it is your first time in Japan, you have a list of temples you have dreamed about for years, or you want the widest choice of gardens and day trips. Plan around early starts, use the trains, and budget for the accommodation tax.
Choose Kanazawa if you have already seen Kyoto, you travel for food, you dislike queues, or you want a traditional Japanese city that still feels lived in. Two days covers the highlights, and three lets you slow down.
Choose both if you have six days or more. The two cities complement each other better than they compete, and the train between them takes about the same time as a long lunch.
See Kanazawa and Kyoto With Someone Who Lives There
The fastest way past the crowds in Kyoto, and the easiest way into Kanazawa's counters and backstreets, is to walk them with a local. Take a private, personalized walking experience with Lokafy in Kanazawa or Lokafy in Kyoto and discover the city through the eyes of a Lokafyer who calls it home.
Your Lokafyer meets you at your hotel, a station or a café, and the route is built around you: an early-morning Kenroku-en followed by the oden counter their family loves, or a Kyoto morning in the neighbourhoods the tour buses never reach. Tours run from two to six hours, it is only you and your group, and you can cancel for free up to 24 hours ahead.
Book your Kanazawa experience · Book your Kyoto experience
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Kanazawa better than Kyoto?
Neither is better overall. Kyoto has far more temples, gardens and famous sights, and it was Japan's imperial capital for more than a thousand years. Kanazawa is smaller, much less crowded and stronger on seafood, with one of Japan's three great gardens, three geisha districts and a preserved samurai quarter. First-time visitors usually prioritise Kyoto, while repeat visitors and food-focused travellers often prefer Kanazawa.
Is Kanazawa worth visiting if I have already been to Kyoto?
Yes. Kanazawa gives you the teahouse streets, gardens and craft traditions you enjoyed in Kyoto with a fraction of the crowds, plus seafood straight from the Sea of Japan. It also has sights Kyoto does not, including Myoryu-ji (the Ninja Temple), the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art and a gold leaf industry that supplies almost all of Japan's gold leaf.
How do I get from Kyoto to Kanazawa?
Take the Thunderbird limited express from Kyoto Station to Tsuruga, a little under an hour, then change to the Hokuriku Shinkansen for about one more hour to Kanazawa. The whole trip takes around two hours. There has been no direct train since the Shinkansen reached Tsuruga in March 2024, and both trains are covered by the Japan Rail Pass.
How many days do you need in Kanazawa?
Two full days covers Kenroku-en, the castle park, the 21st Century Museum, Omicho Market, all three chaya districts and the samurai quarter at an easy pace. Add a third day for the Ninja Temple tour, a slower food crawl or a day trip out of the city.
Is Kanazawa less crowded than Kyoto?
Much less. Kyoto, a city of about 1.43 million people, received more than 56 million tourists in 2024, and its buses and big temples are often packed. Kanazawa's busiest spots, Higashi Chaya and Kenroku-en, do get busy at midday, but early mornings and the smaller districts like Nishi Chaya and Kazuemachi stay quiet.
Is Kanazawa cheaper than Kyoto?
Generally, yes. Kyoto charges an accommodation tax of ¥200 to ¥10,000 per person per night depending on the room rate, and several temples have raised their fees, with Ginkaku-ji now ¥1,000. Kanazawa's headline sight, Kenroku-en, costs ¥320, the castle grounds and the museum's public zone are free, and a one-day bus pass costs ¥800.
Why is Kanazawa called "little Kyoto"?
Kanazawa earned the nickname because, like Kyoto, it kept its historic streets, teahouse districts and traditional crafts, partly because it was not bombed in World War II. Many locals feel the name undersells the city, since Kanazawa developed its own culture as the capital of the Maeda clan's Kaga domain, from Kaga cuisine to gold leaf and Kutani porcelain.
More from Lokafy on Kanazawa: Solo Travel in Kanazawa: How to See the City on Foot
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